About Salvator Samuel Roditi

Salvator Roditi was the one who travelled abroad for the Roditi firm, while his brothers were in England. In 1919 he was one of the first Europeans to make business with the Soviets. After the revolution he succeeded into selling wheat to the starving Russians. He travelled in Persia riding on a donkey because railroad was not existing in these lands at this time.

When he was young and still used to go to the synagogue with his parents, he was asked to put the money he had out of his pockets before to go into the synagogue. When he saw that his father, just after the office, talking business with other men in front of the synagogue, he thought that it was unjust and since this time he never returned to the synagogue.

Salvator Roditi used to pray in Hebrew each morning and evening, but he did not want to go to the synagogue, while his daughters Stephany and Corine were attending to the office because they wanted God to give them a husband for their daughters. One time, for the Great Atonement Day lunch, he took his granddaughter Colette to the restaurant while her aunts were fasting at the synagogue.. Colette asked him why he was eating during Yom Kipur, whereas he prayed each day, and he answered "J'ai une affaire avec Dieu, pas avec les hommes !" (Colette Kemp, 08/2009)

Born in Constantinople, he has lived in Plovdiv for years until when he left circa 1912 for Manchester via Brussels. During WWI he travelled abroad, while his wife and his daughters stayed in England, living at Joseph Roditi's place. He lived then in Paris from the 1920's where he remained until the war. During the war he lived with his daughter Suzanne in Nice, and he returned to Paris after, living in hotels with his wife. They left Paris in 1965 to live with their daugher Fanny (Stephanie) in Barcelona and they died here some years later.

He had close ties with the Camondo family before the war, since they were second cousins. He said that they was an oil-painted portrait of one of the Counts of Camondo in their gallery, and he looked like a double of Salvator himself.